


Like vines instead of veins

by Kirjava3456airbender



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Fighting, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Purple Prose, Swearing, That's it, Unhealthy Relationships, that's the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 19:50:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17689784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirjava3456airbender/pseuds/Kirjava3456airbender
Summary: It's too late to think of a summary.There's pain and then they fall in love.People tend to forget, there can be pain in love too.





	Like vines instead of veins

**Author's Note:**

> Not edited, we die like men.
> 
> (Also, English ain't my first language.)

He feels the bone crunch when JJ breaks his nose and he almost grins before he knees the Canadian in the stomach.

JJ is looking at him with electric blue eyes and smirking.

“Is that all you can do, asshole?!” He asks with a snarl before he bites his tongue to stop himself from saying what he really wants to say: ‘You should kiss me instead.’  
\----  
Nobody in school remembers a time in which JJ and Yuri didn’t fight.

It started on their first day back from summer vacation, Yuri was a freshman and JJ was a sophomore with the bluest eyes in school.

JJ also happened (happens) to be an asshole.

So, having that last fact in mind it shouldn’t really be a surprise that, as they both entered the auditorium for the morning assembly, JJ stepped aside and said:

“Ladies first.” With the biggest shit eating grin one could imagine.

And yes, maybe any normal person would have sighed, rolled their eyes and quickly moved on but Yuri had never been known for being the most normal person. In fact, Yuri was mostly known for his outbursts of pure rage and so he answered with a:

“Shut the fuck up you motherfucking asshole.” And he didn’t let the one little comment go for the rest of their relationship.  
-  
Blood pumping through their veins and rapid breaths.

Blood flowing down his chin.

His spit leaves a red stain on the floor and JJ crinkles his nose.

“You look like a fucking zombie.” He says with a disgusted look and Yuri growls.

“You were the one that split my lip, Leroy!”

JJ laughs.  
\----  
At first, it started with taunts and insults and teasing from JJ’s side.

Taking everything into account, their first weeks in school were actually quite civil, with Yuri glowering at him with dark green eyes in the hallways and JJ’s aforementioned teasing comments.

He just wanted to get a rise out of Yuri and nobody expected it to escalate any further.  
Until JJ made the same “Ladies first” comment outside of the bathroom and Yuri launched himself at him with an enraged battle cry.

Really, the Canadian should have know when to stop, but he had never been known for being the sharpest tool in the shed.  
That first fight went down in school history as the start of a beautiful enmity.

Neither JJ nor Yuri knew how to fight back then but they became better over the years.  
They became vicious and slowly learned to fight brutally, exploiting each other’s weaknesses.  
JJ was stronger but Yuri was faster and when they fought it looked like they were dancing.  
\---------------  
He takes a moment to rest his burning forehead against the cool porcelain of the bathroom before the coughs start wracking his body again.

It feels like the petals are sandpaper against his throat.

The white Chrysanthemums look like stained snow against the red of the blood.  
“Yuri?”

He whips around with wide eyes to find JJ standing at the bathroom’s door. Of fucking course.

“Are… Are you okay?” He sort of wants to make a smart assed comment because he just coughed up a fucking bouquet so of course he isn’t but he also knows right now is not the moment.  
He stands, flushing the toilet and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  
It leaves a red streak on pale skin.

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“W-what?! But, Yuri, you’re sick!” And at that, he gets angry because of course he knows he’s sick.

He’s spent too many sleepless nights wondering when he won’t wake up.

He grabs JJ’s collar and even though he’s always been shorter than the Canadian, for once he towers over him, even if for just a second.  
“Listen here, asshole. If you tell anyone I’ll kill you. I’m not even joking, I’ll kill you.”

JJ just gulps.   
And nods with a strange emotion flickering in his sky-eyes.  
\-------  
After that something changed, JJ started walking on eggshells around the Russian. Like he was afraid Yuri would break.

(And maybe I will, Yuri thinks after coughing until he vomits, bile and red and stupidly white petals.)

Everyone in school looked at them with bated breaths, waiting for something to happen and the expectation hung in the school hallways like wet thick fog.

If Yuri had been patient maybe things would have been different, maybe they would have continued to tiptoe around each other for weeks on end. But Yuri had never been known for being a patient person.

\---------

So he fucking punches JJ in the jaw.

Again and again and again.

But JJ doesn't fight back and that more than anything is what makes Yuri explode.

With tears in his eyes, he kisses JJ.

JJ looks back at him, breathless, kiss-bruised lips and all, and somehow manages to look like perfection under the fluorescent lights.

Both of them are panting, chests heaving, Yuri goes in for another kiss.

Tan fingers against his lips stop him.

“Yuri… So all this time, it was me?”

 

And Yuri frowns because honestly, one would think it would be pretty obvious that if you kiss your arch-enemy after he sees you coughing up flowers you might, just might, be in love with them.

He lifts a perfectly groomed brow and JJ just blushes.

“Well, that’s… That’s good, cause I kind of…” And then he just puts his hand in his pocket and takes out a half dried flower and of course, of course, JJ would spit out roses.

Of course, JJ would be so cliché and Yuri can’t deal with that.

The euphoria rises up like bubbles up his throat and he leans in again.

JJ meets him halfway there.  
\-------  
Honestly? Yuri expected more of a reaction from the rest of the school when they walked into the lunchroom hand in hand.

Mostly, everyone just looked like they had always known it would happen and Yuri even saw Sara pass Mila ten bucks. The only thing resembling an objection was Phichit asking:

“Does this mean I won’t have any more weekly fights for my instastories?”

And that’s it, they used to be enemies and then they were dating (and just that because they were both kind of scared of the word boyfriend and what it would entail). Life kept going.   
\-------  
Viktor, his too-handsome-for-his-age doctor, is furious.  
Like, actually furious, slapping his hands on the table and breathing hard.

“What the fuck? We spoke about this, Yuri. You told me you were having the surgery!”

And yeah, maybe their relationship isn’t the most professional doctor-patient relationship, because Viktor has been his friend (his brother) for as long as he can remember and it would be strange if they didn’t get emotional over each other.

“You know how this works, Yuri, the flowers won’t just disappear like that!” And Yuri is rattled because the last time Viktor looked this serious and broken, was when he had to tell Yuuri, his fiancé that he had torn his knee ligaments and would probably never dance again.

“Yuri, listen to me, if you don’t get the surgery now and this boy breaks your heart, it’ll be too late. No alternatives, you’ll die.”

Yuri looks up at him with the softest eyes Viktor’s ever seen.

“I trust him.”  
\-------  
The thing is, Phichit thinking they’d stop fighting was just wrong. And, yeah, sure, they were dating now and the first days were sugary and bubbly and full of kissing but just because they were a sort-of-item now it didn’t mean they’d stop being “JJ and Yuri”.

And if there was one thing that “JJ and Yuri” did it was fighting.

The first time it happened again they went easy on each other until JJ slipped and punched Yuri extra hard on the jaw and the blonde got a familiar glint in his eyes.

“Oh, it’s on now!” And they both grinned and going back to fighting was like going back to breathing.

They loved each other but the aggression and the complicated improv of hit-duck-kick came like second nature to them, to their relationship.  
Fighting, for them, was like talking.  
\------  
Anyone who expected Yuri and JJ to have normal, vanilla sex in the missionary position is pretty much an idiot, Yuri thinks, as he rides JJ’s cock.

His thighs are trembling from the effort and oversensitivity that comes from cumming yet not stopping and his cries are muffled by the gag in his mouth.

JJ’s fingers leave another kind of bruise on his hips, holding him up, and Yuri’s hands shake, tied behind his back.

Suddenly, everything goes white-black-white when they orgasm at the same time and as he looks down at JJ’s sweaty face Yuri’s hit with the fact that he’s in love with him.

And seriously, one would think that the goddamn chrysanthemums would be enough but this is more than that.

Yuri realizes that he wants to spend the rest of his life with JJ and the thought is sun-warm in his chest.

The kiss is awkward through gagged lips.

\--------

The thing is, the fighting and the relationship used to be completely separate but it was only a matter of time until the two bled into each other like watercolors. 

One moment they were arguing about who was supposed to vacuum the floor (the goddamn floor) and the next Yuri was seeing stars from JJ’s puch. He followed suit.

He snarled like a caged animal and he punched back and they both should have known there would be no going back.

They have sex after the fight, left unresolved, and it’s too much, too rough and every time JJ pulls his hair Yuri just wants to say “Stop”.

But he doesn’t.

\--------------  
And from that moment on, things changed.

Because suddenly their physical fights were also emotional fights and this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Viktor’s warning words echoed in his head each time he laid a bandaid on a cut or rubbed salve onto a bruise. (“if he breaks your heart...”)

\---------------  
It takes Yuri’s favorite mug breaking for him to understand that things aren’t going as well as they should.

The mug used to be black, cat-shaped and a gift from Yuuri. Now it lies in pieces on the floor, having missed its intended (JJ’s stupidly pretty nose) by at least a foot.

He drops to his knees and to his absolute horror starts sobbing. JJ’s still incensed, still screaming (“Oh you’re crying now, aren’t you?! Don’t pretend you weren’t the one who started this fight, Yuri!”), but Yuri can only stare at the broken mug.

He didn’t even use it that much, the cat ears were too sharp for comfort and it had been collecting dust for years now. Yet it aches.

And Yuri knows it’s not really about the mug, it’s about everything. It’s about the fighting and the hurting and the fact that Yuri and JJ have made each other cry too many times to count in just a few months.

The flowers were wrong.

The damn flowers ate him up from the inside out and for what? A broken mug, two broken hearts.

Hanahaki doesn’t deal with true love or soulmates or destiny. The flowers aren’t an indication of some magical red thread uniting you to someone. They’re just that, organic matter.

He looks up, steel in his eyes, hands shaking.

“I think we should break up.”  
\-----------------  
That had made JJ go quiet. The Canadian was quiet for days, maybe racking his brain for an alternative. Yuri knows there is none.

“But I still love you.” Says JJ, one night, breaking the silence, his breath warm against the shell of Yuri’s year. The blonde understands what he means immediately (“The flowers will come back.”) He sighs.

“We’ll get the surgery then.” And that’s that.  
\------------------  
It takes them days to actually break up, days spent in bed sleeping or making love lazily, sunlight streaming through the windows. Their last days are spent bathed in golden light.

They pack up each other’s stuff, and slowly their apartments become two again, instead of just extensions of the same flat. 

But they also keep stuff.

JJ leaves his favorite flannel in Yuri’s closet and Yuri ties his favorite bracelet on JJ’s wrist with a triple knot. They’re silent don’t-forget-me’s even though the only cure to Hanahaki is to forget. They’re tiny hopes (that maybe they were destined to each other, that they’ll find each other again.)

Yuri accompanies JJ to the clinic, but they don’t say goodbye.

Their last kiss tastes metallic, earthy.

Sick.  
\------------------  
Viktor looks him in the eye and sighs.

“I warned you, Yuri, it’s too late now.” And there’s something ridiculous about being scolded for dying.

“I know.”  
\-----------------  
Two years into college, JJ finally gets a girlfriend.

Isabella is sweet, pretty and best of all she doesn’t seem to care that he once had Hanahaki. Other girls look disgusted when they see the scars on his chest, like they think he’ll leave them for this person he doesn’t remember.

But Isabella is different, she goes with him to the gym when he feels like there’s so much energy pent up in his muscles he’s going to explode.

Her hand is soft in his as they walk through the park, ice cream cones in hand, looking cliche and idyllic. JJ thinks he might propose soon.

Someone crashes into his shoulder and he almost drops his ice cream. JJ growls at the stranger.

“Watch where you’re going, man!” The stranger looks amused more than apologetic.

“Sorry, sorry.” JJ looks him up and down, wondering if this is worth a fight. The stranger is sort of beautiful and he looks like he could take it, tall, long-haired and green-eyed, but as soon as JJ looks at the stranger’s naked arms any thought of fighting flees his mind.

The scars on his arms aren’t actually scars but Hanahaki vines directly under the skin, this man should be bed-ridden if not dead already. JJ thinks about the scars on his chest, would he look like this if he hadn’t gotten the surgery?

“Just be more careful, man.”

He walks away, holding Isabella’s hand tightly, what-ifs running through his head.  
He doesn’t see the tears pool in Yuri’s eyes, his elated smile.

“Thank god, he’s happy.”

\--------------  
Viktor puts Chrysanthemums on Yuri’s grave.


End file.
